Yesterday was a good news day for Peoria! Lawmakers in the U.S. House Appropriations Committee advanced a Department of Agriculture funding plan that’s going to help keep Peoria’s Ag Lab in business. This is good news because the Ag Lab is an historical building that’s been in operation since 1938—Penicillin was developed there among other discoveries through the years—and it was being threatened with closure under a budget brought forth though President Donald Trump’s administration. We have to thank both U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos and U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood for their efforts to keep this place alive. You can read about the latest update in the PJ Star right here.

I don’t like to get political on the MBIP blog, but I thought in light of this victory it might be nice if Donald Trump could admit he made a mistake in trying to close this place and bring them some lunch. Of course President Trump is too busy to do this, he’s got to update his Twitter feed and all, so I thought we’d do the next best thing here. And if you keep on scrolling, you’ll see what the next best thing is!

I’ve got someone to help me with this post today and that someone is none other than Terry Grawey! He’s brought his knife and fork for lunch today and you can read all about that in this post. Terry is a HypnoHumorist and if you’ve never seen one of his comedy hypnosis shows, you should really check it out. Here’s a post from one of his shows that he put me under and he’s got an upcoming show on Saturday, August 5th at Peoria Pizza Works. Check out the flyer at the bottom of the post for information about that show. Okay, enough of the plugs for Terry, let’s get on with this post!

As I said in the introduction, I thought it would be nice if Donald Trump would take some lunch over to Peoria’s Ag Lab and admit he was wrong in trying to shut the place down. Since Donald can’t do this, with the help of a mask, soon I’ll be transformed into...

We’re picking up lunch at the place that always supplies the afternoon meal for these “Can I Eat My Lunch In Here?” episodes, Khaki Jack’s.

Quite a few heads turned as I went in and placed a Presidential luncheon order. Hey check out the sign, looks like my luncheon slogan is catching on! That’s what I call winning! There’s Chuck with our lunch order and now it’s time to hit the road. We’re in a hurry and we’re Russian...whoops, I mean we’re rushing to get to the Peoria Ag Lab!

Here we are pulling up to the Ag Lab and I was originally going to wear the mask inside. Terry advised me not to, since this is a federal building and all and I decided he was right and took off the mask before we went inside. You know you’re making crazy decisions when Terry Grawey is the voice of reason, but that’s why I asked him to come along today! Let’s go inside and see if Donald Trump can eat his lunch in here!

I went in and talked to the woman at the information window and it was awkward as always as I tried to explain that I wanted to see if Donald Trump could apologize to them and eat his lunch in there. As you can see, security is pretty tight inside and check out the registry, Terry signed the Donald’s name there, nice touch, Terry! Well after a phone call, we were told that lunch with Donald Trump wasn’t going to happen there, but they were very nice and they did let us take a photo in the lobby with me pointing to a picture of Donald, so at least we got that. I suspected that we wouldn’t be able to pull this off, so we had a back-up plan for this Trumpian lunch outing.

And the back-up plan was to come here to The Costume Trunk. Let’s go inside and you’ll soon see why we came here.

There’s the owner of The Costume Trunk and one of the nicest guy’s in Peoria, Steve Spain! Let’s open the lunch from Khaki Jack’s and see what Tony prepared for this luncheon. He made us a ham and cheese sandwich which is very appropriate for a Donald Trump lunch seeing that our president is equal parts ham and cheese! I love the pizza box with the “Make Pizza Great Again” recipe! It mirrors the “Make America Lunch Again” slogan and proves the great minds think alike! We sampled the lunch (Terry was sad because Ranch dressing was banned, but what are you going to do?) and then it was time for the final portion of our lunch with Donald Trump.

The reason we came here is that in addition to owning and running The Costume Trunk, Steve also has apartments for rent in this building and he named the place, The Trunk Tower! How perfect is that for a place in Peoria for Donald Trump to have lunch in? So we went inside and a special guest joined us for a slice of pizza on the stairs of Peoria’s Trunk Tower...

Vlad loved the pizza and I’m just hoping that Obama didn’t bug this Tower! Thanks to Tony and Khaki Jack’s for a great lunch and to Steve Spain and Terry Grawey for playing along, this was a lot of Presidential fun! We’ll see you all tomorrow!

Terry Grawey At Peoria Pizza Works!

As I mentioned above, Terry is doing one of his super-entertaining comedy hypnosis shows at Peoria Pizza Works on Saturday August 5th. The show includes an all you can eat buffet and you can read more about the show and Terry right here!